


Olive Juice and Elephant Shoes

by burymeinziam



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 20:56:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burymeinziam/pseuds/burymeinziam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which zayn is kind of hippie and hell bent on saving the earth and liam doesn’t really get it but he’s trying his best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Olive Juice and Elephant Shoes

The airport is basically a ghost town at three in the morning when Liam finally finishes his soggy cup of stale coffee, eyes wandering toward the huge floor-to-ceiling windows as he gazes out at the milky haze of a snowstorm. In the distance, Liam thinks he can almost see lights, planes, a runway, but it’s all lost in the snow and the hail and the wind and in that moment Liam knows they aren’t going anywhere tonight.

It was Zayn’s idea to fly out the day before. Liam suddenly remembers because, if he remembers this correctly, this way they could get to Bradford early and have a couple of hours to kill wandering the city before taking their rental car up to see Zayn’s retired parents for the holiday. Liam wanted to leave a few days earlier so they could have entire days to kill; maybe have their own little vacation first, but Zayn put up an argument until they both begrudgingly agreed on today.

Liam’s eyes wander around the almost empty terminal and he thinks bitterly to himself, _merry Christmas._

Outside of the window, Liam can see a flight get canceled, people getting off the plane they’d boarded no less than a half hour earlier wearing perpetual frowns that Liam can feel in his very core. He’s got his feet crossed Indian style forming a bowl of space for Zayn to rest his head in and when he finally looks back down at his boyfriend all sleeping and curled up on his side across the thin black leather seats, Liam starts to feel a bit better about the whole canceled flight and whispered argument.

Zayn’s neck curls awkwardly over Liam’s thigh so his head can fall halfway onto Liam’s crotch as his curled spine rises and falls with his breathing. He’s doing that awkward thing that Liam secretly loves, that thing that makes his heart feel like it’s going to burst straight out of his chest, where he slides his hands between his thighs and unconsciously cups his crotch to keep his hands warm while a bead of drool slips out from the edge of his lips and stains Liam’s jeans. When a wisp of hair falls out from behind his ear and over his lidded eye, Liam touches his forehead and tucks the hair back out the way for him, starting to feel that sort of warm feeling of love and guilt all over again.

Maybe Liam had overacted a little. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten so mad because it’s not like Zayn is some sort of a storm god who punches holes in the clouds and slams hailstorms around left and right just when they need to catch a plane. It’s not like Zayn can predict the future either so maybe Liam sending all his frustration in Zayn’s direction the second he saw their departure time switch from a series of numbers to a big, red blinking “CANCELED/DELAYED” on the screen displaying the flight times was slightly uncalled for.

Zayn stirs underneath him and Liam’s hand freezes on Zayn’s ear, feeling the empty piercing on his lobe. Then Zayn’s eyes are twitching, his lips closing with a low, mumbling noise in the back of his throat and Liam watches him move around in this sort of half-sleep state and he begins to feel better already.

Liam would never tell Zayn in a million years that he enjoys watching him sleep. Not the stubborn, wary, almost obnoxious, master distributor of the silent treatment Zayn. Besides, Liam thinks, Zayn’s face is peaceful despite the bad mood he’d fallen asleep in. He looks comfortable in Liam’s lap and it sort of reminds him of how Zayn looks when he watches him fall asleep after sex. Liam thinks about how when Zayn was dozing off, he’d been sitting up, arms tucked beneath his armpits, facing in the opposite direction; trying, deliberately to shun Liam away.

But then, as he actually begin to slip into unconsciousness, Liam simply watched, contented, as Zayn’s head began to loll, his spine beginning to droop. As the tone of his breathing slipped into a soft, barely noticeable snore, Liam just sipped his coffee, not bothering to try and stop Zayn’s body from falling into him, slumping against his shoulder and then sliding down into his lap.

Dead asleep within ten minutes.

Liam has realized that Zayn always sleeps well after any kind of drama. The bickering tires him out. Yelling leaves him voiceless. Liam can feel a small ball of guilt building up in his stomach all over again at the memory of even dumping that whole this-is-all-your-fault nonsense onto Zayn in the first place. But the aftereffect of Zayn using him as a pillow even though he’d been trying so hard to ignore Liam when he was awake is priceless. Zayn isn’t built for fighting even if he is the most stubborn and temperamental guy on the planet, Liam thinks.

And it’s kind of the whole reason Liam loves him in the first place.

Zayn makes another sound in his sleep and Liam feels his head nudge against his crotch. He looks down at Zayn’s closed eyelids, occasionally flicking and shifting as Zayn’s brain slowly lifts out of a dream and into consciousness. Liam rotates the empty coffee cup in his hand and looks over at the flight time monitors. Their next available flight isn’t for another six hours and the storm outside is still going at full blast. Zayn will wake up in a few seconds and he’ll probably be grumpy when he sees that still have hours and hours of waiting left to do. Liam knows that even while Zayn is terrible at arguing, he’s a pro at holding grudges and even when Liam knows that Zayn will wake up in a bad mood, he still feels alright.

Outside the wind is kicking up and over the intercom a lady’s voice is saying a flight that is inconveniently not theirs is ready to board two terminals over. Out of the corner of his eye, Liam can see a man in a suit sprint to make his flight as an entire crowd of people begin to form at a terminal in the distance to board another flight that is decidedly not theirs. Every part of the airport feels busy and cramped and when Liam looks around at their nearly empty section, he feels a sense of comfort even if he is a little jealous that all those other people are boarding before him. Zayn hums a direct noise of _awake now_ and Liam looks down at his eyes dragging open.

“Morning, princess,” Liam says flatly as Zayn finally moves. There’s a sudden feeling of absence, a sort of emptiness of warmth, as Zayn’s head leaves Liam’s lap. His eyes click open and he sits up as abruptly as he can in his half-awake state, squeezing his eyes shut and opening them wide again and again as he adjusts to being back to consciousness.

“… What?” is all Zayn can say and it doesn’t even sound like a question. Liam quietly observes him shifting his weight around, staring blankly into the distance from behind his squinty, lidded eyes and stiffened sleepy glare. Zayn’s hair has shifted and molded into the curve of Liam’s thigh, making it stick up in the back and curl into a crooked awkward pompadour while a big red-pink crease from sleeping against Liam’s jeans has sunken into his cheek.

And Liam thinks it’s one of those moments he wants to file away so he can visit it again at a later date because Zayn has rarely looked more beautiful.

Not that Liam would ever say so out loud; not now, at least.

“You fell asleep on me,” Liam tells him nonchalantly, then sticks his thumb into his mouth and touches it to the side of Zayn’s lips and cheek. He feels kind of like a mom for doing it.

“You got shit on your face,” Liam says when Zayn flinches and tries to get away.

“Mnh…” Zayn garbles in defense before turning away to wipe at his own face with the sleeve of his sweater.

“Feel any better?” Liam asks watching as Zayn scrubs at his face with his hands, slowly draping out his cramped legs for a stretch. Zayn stops moving at the sound of Liam’s voice and moves his palms to cover his eyes, but still allowing him to speak from behind them.

“You called me a pussy tree-hugging dickmouth,” Zayn says flatly and Liam can see his eyes slowly move towards his direction.

Liam closes his lips and brings his coffee quickly up to his mouth to take a sip, pretending like he doesn’t’ already know there are only a few mere drops left and those drops are cold and stale anyways.

“Because if we left tomorrow, we would’ve had the rental car for a shorter amount of time so we would have saved gas,” Zayn goes on, staring dully at the coffee stand, not caring if Liam responds or not. “And money, too.”

“Huh,” is all Liam can muster. The last drops of coffee taste like ass, but he’s developed a good poker face for coping with shitty coffee at this point in his life.

“You knew it was a good idea,” Zayn says, now looking at Liam’s empty, soggy cup. He pauses for a moment before his eyes move back up to Liam’s to give him a blunt look. Liam can see Zayn’s arms crossing over his chest, out of the corner of his eye.

“You just don’t ever want to admit that you’re wrong.”

Liam stares very hard at a wall, makes eye contact with every person near him except for Zayn.

“There isn’t even any coffee left in that cup,” Zayn says lowly to the back of Liam’s turned head.

“Huh?” Liam turns back to Zayn finally, pretending like he was distracted. He nearly jumps when he feels Zayn’s hand slap down on his, wrenching the coffee cup out of his hand and nearly ripping the Styrofoam in the process.

“This isn’t Starbucks,” Zayn states, and Liam can feel the anger floating back up into the air like invisible steam already.

“No, it’s not,” Liam answers. “Good observation.”

His tone is vaguely snarky even though he’s not even sure of what direction this is going. He’s about to go all out with an eye roll when Zayn’s snaps his head up at him, that bad temper rolling back onto his face. Liam flinches in the tiniest, subtlest way possible, expecting to get punched or something, but all Zayn does is sit up, suddenly so full of energy, and hold the cup out in front of Liam’s face.

“Starbucks’ cups are one hundred percent recycled material,” Zayn states very matter-of-factly, and Liam wonders if he knows he sounds like a commercial.

“Yeah?” Liam says, shrugging a bit even though he knows exactly what he’d done wrong. The past five years he’s been with Zayn, Liam has learned more about environmental friendliness and green science and O-Zone layer depletion than the one environmental science class he was forced to take in high school ever taught him. He’s gotten used to being prodded into buying reusable water bottles instead of the bottles out of the vending machines, turning off the lights every time he leaves a room, and in a secret, quiet way, he thought it just made Zayn that much cuter. Only now was he beginning to realize how the more years he spent with Zayn, the less leash length Zayn was going to be willing to give him with cheating.

Zayn’s eyes widen for just a second in a sort of flare-up of rage, before his entire expression tightens back into the angry pout he’d been wearing.

“You yell at me after I give you fucking good advice.” Zayn grits his teeth, his face inching closer to Liam’s while he holds up the edge of the rim of the Styrofoam cup with just his thumb and index finger. The movements are subtle and small, but Liam grips onto the metal armrest and tries to inch away anyway, unsure of what Zayn is going to do next; unsure if Zayn is going to smack him or not.

“Then you go and drink this shit behind my back…” Zayn goes on, gripping the cup even harder, his eyes burning into Liam’s. He stares at Liam for a while before finally getting to the point.

“So, what do you think?” He finishes darkly. “Do you think I feel better?”

“You were asleep, so I just figured…” Liam says almost softly, then regrets it because he’s not even sure where he’s going with that.

Zayn flares up in the littlest way again before crunching the cup in his hand. Liam flinches, thinking t’s going to hit him in the face but instead, Zayn wrenches his arm to throw it in the direction of a nearby garbage can.

“So I guess you just do whatever the fuck you please as long as your annoying hippie boyfriend isn’t looking, right?” He asks, the sleepy grumble finally leaving his voice.

“Hey!” Liam starts, his own voice rising as he points a finger at Zayn. He can hear how loud they sound in comparison to the silence of the rest of their terminal and it makes him go back to the same whispering tone they’d had when they were fighting before.

“I did not say that about you,” Liam hisses. “All I was going to say was that you were asleep and the place that only had the Styrofoam cups was closer. I didn’t want to walk too far away from you while you were trying to sleep.”

“Oh, so now I need you to look after me. Is that it?” Zayn spits back in a challenging tone. “Well, in that case, I’m sorry I said anything.”

Liam sighs; drags a hand over his face. “Maybe,” he retorts, exasperated. “I didn’t want out stuff to get stolen; did you ever stop to think about that?”

“Yeah, like anyone would want your ugly shoes and that used copy of the Green Lantern,” Zayn says, sitting back straight in his seat. He very visibly rolls his eyes and Liam can feel a little puddle of anger forming deep in his belly.

“No, but I’m sure they’d love you phone or, better you, your wallet,” Liam says back, keeping it going. In the back of his mind he kind of can’t believe their circling back to almost the same argument they’d had before.

“You know what, why don’t you just shut up,” Zayn says irritably, taking his carry-on bag and aggressively unzipping it to find something inside. Liam can feel the puddle growing, more droplets of anger raining into it, only now he can no longer think of anything to defend himself. He throws his hands up into the air and makes this sort of defeated noise instead.

“I give up.”

Zayn peeks back up at him, questioning, while still shuffling through his bag.

“Last week you were saying ‘what the hell is wrong with you? Don’t ever buy anything from Starbucks because they’re just another blood-sucking corporation that can afford to overcharge you for your coffee ‘cause they never pay their poor farmer slaves’” Liam tries to imitate Zayn’s flustered tone that he gets whenever he gets on one of his tangents, complete with hand gestures and everything. “Now I’m supposed to drink Starbucks because, what, now their fuckin’ cups don’t hurt the environment? C’mon, Zayn!”

“No, you’re supposed to use the reusable travel mug I bought you for Christmas last year so I wouldn’t have to keep reminding you that Styrofoam isn’t biodegradable!” Zayn shoots back, jutting a pointed finger back in the direction of the garbage bin where Liam’s cup rests in peace.

“You’re impossible,” Liam says, exasperated, as he rolls his eyes and leans back in his seat.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, dropping his bag back between his feet, shifting in his seat until he finds a comfortable position. “And you’re an idiot.”

“Oh yeah, Zayn, some poor polar bear is gonna drown now because I drank out of a Styrofoam instead of some biodegradable crap,” Liam adds in, exhaling heavily and slowly forgetting about any ounce of guilt he may have felt before. “Give me a break.”

“Hope _you_ drown,” Zayn mutters back, fixing some part of his pants as he stands up, wiping at his nose with his sleeve.

Liam opens his mouth to spit something back, the very first thing that comes to his mind, but between Zayn making motions like he’s about to walk away and realizing they’ve both reverted back to being ten-years-old again Lam stops himself and briefly watches as Zayn stomps off toward the flight times screen a small distance away.

“You know, this wouldn’t have happened if we left the day I wanted to leave,” Liam has to almost yell it out while he gestures toward the storm as Zayn becomes farther and farther away. Liam watches him, waits for Zayn to spin around and start yelling back, but all Liam can see in the small distance is Zayn’s arm shoot upward, flipping Liam off without even bothering to turn around and face him.

Liam’s mouth opens and closes and he realizes there’s nothing he can say now that would do much of anything. He can see Zayn standing in front of the huge monitor, arms crossed, ignoring the rest of the world around him and it makes Liam want to stomp over there himself just to get the last word.

But his mind is blank for comebacks and Zayn standing like that, still upset after a nap, makes Liam kind makes Liam feel guilty all over again. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and shifts his weight from foot to foot, looks around, unsure of what to do with himself. His throat and nerves itch with the want for a cigarette, but the subtle sticky feeling of the nicotine patch he stuck on his ass cheek, not wanting Zayn to see it outside of his clothes, is a steady, annoying reminder that he’s actually doing something food for not just himself, but the O-Zone layer as well. Therefore, he’s really only just doing it for Zayn.

Besides, if Zayn could quit, Liam could too.

Last Friday, Liam thinks. He smoked the last one in the pack he declared to be his final one, then crumpled up the box and immediately left their apartment for the convenience store down the block. Liam hadn’t even paid attention to how much the patches and the gum cost, only thinking the whole time, ‘Zayn, you better like this because I’m going to kill you if you don’t.’

It takes another sharp of the want of a cigarette to get Liam to finally quit being a dick and to pick up his bag so he can meet Zayn over at the departure times. He scratches his ass momentarily to feel the patch there, to keep reminding himself of Zayn

(“one less cigarette is less part of the problem,” he would say, sort of like a mantra, as he walked past Liam smoking out on the balcony instead of inside of the apartment. And Liam would wonder if the problem was the world or himself.)

then slowly drags himself over to where Zayn is standing in front of the departure times.

“Flight got canceled so they’re putting us on the next one out in a couple of hours,” Liam mutters when he finally appears behind Zayn and even hear can hear the mumbled tone of apology in his voice.

Zayn stands facing the screen, refusing to turn around or say anything back and Liam awkwardly shifts his weight from one foot to the other as he stares at Zayn staring at the screen. Eventually, he bends over a bit to set his bags down and lets out a sigh from being relieved of the weight. Then he kind of stays like that, folding over, gripping and drumming his fingers against his knees.

“You forgot the mug, didn’t you?” Zayn finally speaks up, not looking away from the screen.

Liam raises his head at the sound of Zayn’s voice, then closes his eyes. He lets himself lose his balance and falls back onto his ass just so he can sit on the floor and rake his fingers through his hair, wanting nothing more than to be able to go back to the warmth of his own living room and smoke a whole fucking pack without having to worry about their neighbors or the furniture or Zayn’s feelings.

“Yeah,” he answers, deciding honesty would probably be the best option even if it does kind of put him in a bad light. Liam thinks back to the travel mug, thinks about how he’d put it on the kitchen counter along with their phone chargers and shampoos so he wouldn’t forget to pack them. Then, when he’d put everything into their bags, he’d left the mug out so he could carry it with him on the drive to the airport but he’d ended up leaving it behind anyways.

It was one of those nice ones too. The ones that were supposed to look like one of those cheap, Styrofoam cups but was a disguised durable plastic that Liam could refill every day. Zayn had given it to him on Christmas morning filled with organic coffee beans from that expensive grocery store Liam secretly loved visiting after three straight years of Liam dragging Zayn into cafes with him, only to watch Zayn deliberately never order anything because the cups weren’t recyclable or, according to Zayn’s instincts, the coffee came from underpaid farmers or slave labor in South America. Liam had rolled his eyes at yet another one of Zayn’s “greener earth” presents, but even Zayn could sense Liam smiling on the inside.

Liam thinks about how he never actually told Zayn how much he loved it and how Zayn could tell anyways. Liam had in turn bought him a vegan cookbook and even went as far as to stick yellow post-it-notes on all the pages that had recipes that Liam would actually tolerate – things they could actually sit down and eat together. In between the coffee beans in his travel mug, Liam had found a little buried note, tightly folded so it could be hidden, that said “Thanks for helping me save the world. – Zayn.”

It was the first Christmas they’d ever spent at home with just each other; when they agreed to get just one meaningful thing for each other, and Liam can’t even imagine how happy he must have made Zayn to use that mug every day like it was meant to be used.

Liam bends his neck at an awkward angle to look up at Zayn, or at least Zayn’s ass which is directly in Liam’s line of vision.

“Sorry…” He finally mutters up to Zayn, watches him shift a little bit. “That I forgot it…”

Zayn stares hard at the departure times until they flicker away to a whole new set of big red DELAYED and CANCELLED signs. When their flight is no longer up there, he finally lowers his head while Liam catches a glimpse of his foot scuffing against the floor.

“I didn’t get Starbucks because you told me their coffee beans came from child laborers,” Liam goes on hearing the desperate ‘forgive me; in his voice. “I… I remembered you telling me that.” He looks back up at Zayn, waiting for a scoff or another refusal to speak to him at all, but Liam feels a little bit of hope when he sees Zayn’s head begin to turn on his shoulders. 

“Thanks…” Liam finally hears Zayn mutter and it makes his heart swell back up, if only just a little.

“And the other place was all local, too,” Liam adds in, kind of hoping the extra detail will mean something. Zayn scuffs his feet on the floor in response, still so very stubborn, but Liam still sees it as progress.

Liam stares up at Zayn’s ass for a while, silently enjoying the view and not caring if they’re both in everyone’s way, sitting and standing right in front of the departure times screen. Liam watches a couple of flight times go from CANCELLED to DELAYED as a TV playing the news somewhere nearby talks about the storm letting off quicker than they had anticipated. Liam listens as the newscasters go from talking to the weather to talking about the war and celebrities, and their decidedly neutral voices is enough to make him zone out, eyes fixated on a hole in the back of Zayn’s jeans. He pictures what Zayn’s butt looks like naked and focuses solely on that image until something clunking right on top of his head rips him back to reality.

“Shit!” Liam nearly shrieks, palming the top of his skull in pain, feeling something lightweight but hard fall into his lap. Looking up at Zayn quizzically, he sees the tiniest glimpse of a smirk on Zayn’s lips, and then looks down at whatever had fallen into his lap.

“Ow,” Liam says flatly as he picks up a tiny box wrapped in newspaper, turning it around in his hands until he suddenly remembers that Zayn is the only person who wraps his presents in recycled materials. “Wait… this is…” his voice trails off as he looks up at Zayn who is still just smiling slyly.

“Your present,” Zayn finishes for him. “Early.”

Liam tears the newspaper off as fast as he can only to find that there are actually layers of it on top of excess scotch tape. “Jesus…” he mumbles when it becomes a struggle just to get all of the wrapping off even though he’s used to Zayn being the most obnoxious present wrapper in the world. He struggles to get himself back onto his feet without using his hands to push himself up while continuing to unwrap the present in the process.

“Damn,” Is all Liam says, almost chuckling as he finally tosses all the torn paper and tape to the floor. When he finally looks at what the present actually is, his head whips over to Zayn, before he just blinks. When he looks back to Zayn again, his face has gone back to the kinder look that Liam knows well and it makes Liam feel like the Grinch when his hear grows three or ten or fifty sizes too big for his chest even though he’s also still feeling extremely confused.

A blue ring box is cradled between his fingers and all Liam can think to say is “You wanna get married?”

Zayn’s smile falls unusually fast and is replaced with a flat expression and an eye roll. “No,” he scoffs and Liam’s own smile falls as well.

When Zayn sees Liam’s face he struggles immediately to explain himself. “Well I just… I mean they’re – you know…” Zayn waves his hands around, trying to find words. “I didn’t mean like, you know, not like right now – just look inside the box and shut up.”

“There’s two of them,” Liam comments after opening the box during Zayn’s blabbering. Something inside of him caves in a bit, a kind of strange feeling of utter love, when he notices they’re custom made for each other and that the bigger ring must be for him.

“They’re promise rings,” Zayn says more clearly, nearly sighing; his voice softening.

Liam takes the smaller ring out and examines it close to his face. Under the fluorescent lights of the airport he can see engravings on the top of the silver band. He can’t read it completely clearly, but he grins, even though he’s not sure he totally understands. He lip reads “Elephant Shoes” then lowers the ring away from his eyes.

“I’m not asking you to marry me,” Zayn says and Liam can feel his hand suddenly tucked and wrapped under his own arm. “... Yet.” Zayn pauses as his eyes shift around, unsure if he’s saying it in a good way. “They’re just… they’re just there to remind us that we’re here for each other and maybe, like, a sort of engagement prequel sort of thing.”

Liam just grins and does what he’s always secretly wanted to do no matter how corny it seems, and takes Zayn’s other hand and slips the ring onto his finger. Then, allows Zayn to do the same for him.

“We look good,” Liam says as they knowingly bring their hands together at the same time to examine the rings next to each other. They’re almost huddled together, tilting their hands to examine how they look with matching rings when Liam feels Zayn’s warm face next to his own; Zayn’s lips on his cheek.

“No diamonds. I hope you don’t mind,” Zayn whispers into Liam’s ear as his other hand rests on Liam’s chest. Liam just chuckles so softly it almost goes unheard because, obviously, he doesn’t mind at all. If children in Sierra Leone were getting killed over them then Liam didn’t expect to get any from Zayn). Admittedly, he also doesn’t even know the first thing about jewelry; only goes about pretending like he understands, but he doesn’t think he needs to know or appreciate fine things to know that he loves Zayn’s gift.

“NO more diamonds; just like you said,” Liam says lowly, smiling, almost speaking to himself as he looks at the ring. He likes how new and clean it looks on his usually naked hand. It’s a nice, plain shining silver that makes him feel secretly luxurious and when it’s right next to Zayn’s hand, Liam can almost picture them as wedding rings anyways.

“What does the other one say?” Liam asks, looking down at his own hand, twisting it around so he can read the script. Before Zayn can answer, Liam is already slipping the ring off to examine it under the soft glow of the departure screens. He can’t read the text to well, but he can vaguely make out two short words.

“Olive juice,” Zayn answers for him and Liam looks at him strangely.

“Elephant shoes and olive juice…” Liam says out loud, questioning. He pause for a second trying to figure out if he knows what it means; if he’s heard it before, or f Zayn is just being vague and cryptic on purpose.

“I don’t get it,” he says flat out, but he hears his voice trail off. He feels like this was some hidden secret between them that he was supposed to remember, but didn’t and feels a flicker of guilt for it.

The tiny, warm smirk that was on Zayn’s lips abruptly disappears as his face momentarily flickers into his usual dull stare. Liam feels his stomach lurch somewhat, feeling, knowing, that he’s ruined the moment. But Zayn then Zayn is closing his eyes and doing what appears to be a silent, therapeutic breathing routine for anger management and Liam knows that he’s okay.

“It means…” Zayn says, his eyes fluttering open, then quickly shifting around, suddenly uncomfortable; unsure. “It means… you know…”

Liam blinks, feeling almost embarrassed, like the answer is so obvious as Zayn’s hands wave around, not exactly wanting to say the words out loud.

“It means… oh my, God! You know what it means,” Zayn says, slapping his hands back down to his sides and rolling his eyes.

Liam blinks again and looks back down at the ring when it suddenly clicks in his head.

“Oh,” he says slowly. “Oh!” Liam looks back over at Zayn, but quickly glances back at the ring, feeling the grin stretch across his face.

“Yeah,” Zayn sighs, suddenly sounding like he’s exhausted. Liam just grins at him, suddenly so full of adoration.

“That’s so dorky,” Liam says through his smile, wanting to yank Zayn into a hug and squeeze him for hours.

“Gee thanks,” Zayn mutters, joking, his shoulders slouching. “Wonderful.”

Liam somehow manages to scoff and laugh simultaneously. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, turning back to the screen just to tease Liam. “Whatever.”

“Hey.” Liam lifts his head, feeling the ring in his palm and inexplicably remembering the nicotine patch on his ass. He looks Zayn directly in the eye, sounding stern out of nowhere. He waits for Zayn to face him again, cocking an eyebrow at him, before Liam takes his chin in hand.

“What?” Zayn answer and Liam can hear his voice softening. Liam meets Zayn’s eyes, thinking of all the corny things he’s supposed to say then, but is unable to keep from cracking another smile; ruining the moment.

“I’ve got something for you, too,” he tells Zayn, letting go of his face. Zayn’s softened look falls into a sort of sardonic disappointed one before he cocks another eyebrow at Liam, placing his hands on his belt buckle.

Zayn watches, utterly confused as Liam begins to undo his belt, for a moment, looking as if he’s ready to unzip and randomly pee on the floor. He doesn’t think to speak up until he sees Liam literally grab a hold of his waistband and begin to tug his pants down, making Zayn jump to stop him, convinced for a second that he’s really going to flash his dick for all the airport to see.

“Whoa, whoa, Liam! What – what the hell are you doing?” Zayn hisses, trying to grab at Liam’s hands in some desperate attempt to hike his pants back up. His head whips from side to side, instinctively looking to see if people are staring.

“No, hold on, I wanna show you…” Liam says back lightly, insistent, as he tries to buck his hips out of Zayn’s grip on his belt.

“What the hell are you trying to do? Jesus, Liam, what are you four?” Zayn’s eyes widen as he begins to panic, feeling embarrassed that his boyfriend is publicly disrobing himself. When Liam manages to get out of his grip and hop out of his reach, Zayn’s eyes dart around again, feeling like they’re making a huge scene in his head.

“No, no. C’mon, Zayn, just look!” Liam insists, taking the back of his pants, twisting his body around at an awkward angle and pulling his boxers down, so only Zayn behind him, can see his butt cheeks.

“Look at what?” Zayn grits his teeth, feeling like he wants to smack Liam across the face now instead of wanting to cuddle up beside him. But when he finally glances down at Liam’s overexposed ass and notices what at first looks like a square Band-Aid, he simply closes his mouth and takes a step back.

“Is that –?” Liam absently points at the patch, nearly leaning over to touch it or rub Liam’s ass without thinking before Liam yanks the back of his pants off and cuts him off.

“I quit,” he says. “Last week. Tuesday was my last pack. I quit smoking.”

Zayn blinks and stares, unsure of what to say or do. He stares at Liam, feeling almost suspicious, unsure of Liam is serious or not.

“For you,” Liam finishes sounding as though he were finally getting something large off his chest. It feels that way, at least. He quickly fixes his belt and tugs at his pant legs, trying to readjust everything.

“You’re... you’re really doing it this time?” Zayn says, his voice softened by actual shock, hesitance.

“Really doing it this time,” Liam reiterates, nodding his head for effect.

“And you’re not lying to me,” Zayn says low and slow, as if he’s trying to prove it more to himself than anyone else. “Last time –”

“I’ll never lie to you like that ever again,” Liam states as best as he can, feeling his own fingers twitch and curl, feeling that awkwardness of remembering guilt.

Zayn blinks and stares for what feels like a whole hour before his body launches toward Liam’s. Liam nearly stumbles backward, gripping and holding onto Zayn like he’s afraid of falling and taking Zayn down with him. Zayn buries his face into Liam’s neck, wrapping his arms around his shoulders so that Liam can feel him breathe hotly and excitedly against his skin. When Liam glances down and sees Zayn’s legs dangling odd the floor, he realizes he’s actually carrying Zayn’s weight, and grips onto him even tighter to compensate.

“I know you could do it, babe” Liam hears Zayn’s voice, muffled and buried and he smirks lopsidedly.

“Yeah, well… we’ll see,” Liam says with a sigh in his voice.

When Zayn finally slides back down to the floor, his hands find Liam’s cheeks and he holds Liam’s face, wearing a loving smile.

“You’re awesome,” Zayn says softly, and their faces become so close their noses touch.

“You really think so?” Liam smirks back smugly, deliberately sounding like a little kid.

“Not always,” Zayn scoffs, flatly, but can’t help the tiny laugh that sneaks out. “But sometimes...” His arms wrap around Liam’s neck, pulling himself into his boyfriend.

Liam grins abruptly. “So you’ll blow me tonight?”

Zayn’s hands drop from Liam instantly as he shoot him a look of scorn. “You’re an asshole.”

“I was joking!” Liam says insistently, chuckling.

“Forget it, you ruined it,” Zayn states, turning away.

Liam just grins and laughs, even though he feels warmer inside. He watches Zayn turn back to the screens and cross his arms, deliberately shutting him out again and it just makes Liam smile even wider. He tucks his hands into his jacket pockets and steps toward Zayn, lowering in until his nose is right in Zayn’s ear, until his whole face is buried in Zayn’s hair. He smirks smugly at Zayn’s statue response of forced apathy.

“Zayn…” Liam mutters right into Zayn’s ear. He feels Zayn shift around, cross his arms even tighter.

“Zayn…. Zaaaayyynnnnn?”

Zayn huffs and glares at the screen, but even Liam can sense the smile hidden behind Zayn’s grim expression. Zayn is the most stubborn man Liam has ever been with but they both know that being with Zayn has only made Liam more patient than he’s ever been in his whole life. If Liam sat through silent treatments and periods of absolutely no sex that lasted days on end because he lied to Zayn’s face about quitting smoking, then snuck out on the apartment balcony at night for a secret smoke after he thought Zayn had gone to bed, Liam can surely wait for Zayn to look at him again.

So he simply stares.

“Go away,” Zayn says lightly, defiantly and Liam can see Zayn struggling to stifle a smile.

“I don’t want to,” Liam says, sounding pouty as his body begins to tilt his face turning closer to Zayn’s.

“You’re being stupid,” Zayn says in the same light tone against Liam’s face, which is right in his own. “Go away.”

Liam decides to kiss Zayn on the lips instead. When Zayn doesn’t turn his head away, Liam kisses him several more times; soft, quick pecks that leave a subconscious smile on his face. Zayn doesn’t necessarily kiss him back, but he doesn’t reject him either and that makes Liam happy all the same.

“Hey… olive juice,” Liam whispers through a grin as he presses his nose to Zayn’s.

Liam thinks he might fall to the floor in laughter if Zayn were to say “elephant shoes” back, but instead Zayn grimly stares. He, however, doesn’t swat Liam’s hand away when He wraps an arm around Zayn’s waist. He also doesn’t protest when Liam pulls him into a warm hold, and does eventually slump into him, burying himself into Liam’s chest.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Zayn. I really don’t,” Liam says, resting his chin down on the top of Zayn’s head. He makes eye contact with the occasional passer-by that turns his head as he strolls past, and doesn’t stop holding Zayn. He feels Zayn’s chest rise against his own, and takes in the scent of his hair.

“I know what I’d do,” Zayn says sarcastically, even when his voice is lost and muffled into Liam’s shirt and chest. Liam just grins.

He chuckles as Zayn dislodges his face from Liam’s shirt. He cranes his neck to stare up at him before resting his chin on Liam’s chest.

“I can’t stand you…” Zayn grumbles before turning his head to the side to rest it back down in Liam’s chest.

“Then leave,” Liam says simply; teasingly.

“You leave,” Zayn says back, sounding like a four-year-old again.

“I don’t wanna leave.” Liam smiles softly.

“Well, I don’t wanna leave either,” Zayn pouts back.

“Then I guess we’re not going anywhere.”

“I guess not.”

It takes a short while before Liam begins to laugh. He chuckles softly with his lips pressed against Zayn’s scalp, and then sees something rare – he laughs until Zayn begins to laugh along with him, until their noses touch again and they’re laughing against each other’s faces. They laugh quietly until their faces start to hurt, thinking about the fight over a Styrofoam cup, the rings, thinking of how stupid they both are while looking at each other like they both know they wouldn’t have it any other way.

When they finally simmer down, Zayn settles back against Liam and Liam remembers then how much he really likes it when Zayn is so close to him. He likes those tiny moments when Zayn puts aside his bitterness and Liam agrees to put down his stupidity and, just for a small while, Liam can remember why he likes living on this big, confusing, polluted planet.

Outside of the big floor-to-ceiling windows of the airport, the snow pounds down, still totally silent, and Liam thinks, yeah.

An earth with Zayn on it is kind of totally worth saving.

 


End file.
